I put my face next to his so that a hard breath would have made us kiss, and said, "Drink of my lips." My lips touched his, and the next words were mouth against his own mouth, as if I ate the words and gave them back to him. "Let me feel the strength of you inside me."

He drew back just enough to speak. "It will not be all it could be, for you are mortal, and might drown." With that warning, his mouth came up to meet mine, and as our lips touched, he thrust into my body. Power poured out of my mouth and spilled into his as his body pushed into mine, and it was as if the magic flowed both from me and into me. We became a circle of mouth and body, of magic given and received, of life and small death, of his strength holding us above the waves, of my softness bearing us down. It was almost as if one magic were trying to keep us afloat, and the other sought to drown us. In the midst of life, death; in the midst of joy, danger; in the midst of ocean, land. The earth itself called to me, leagues and leagues below us. The land rolled underneath its blanket of ocean, and I felt it. I felt the earth turning under us, spiraling around, and it was as if the earth felt my thoughts, and stirred in her bed,

I felt the wave of power coming up from underneath us, like some huge, dark creature, swimming up fast and faster, sleek and dark and deadly. It hit us in a wave of power that threw the sea into towering waves, and boiled the land underneath us so that steam filled the air. The water was no longer warm but hot, hot enough that I cried out and jerked my mouth free of his. I saw his face, felt his hands on my hips, felt his body thrusting up into mine, and it wasn't just the hard length of him. It was as if the miles and miles of ocean underneath me were rushing between my legs, spilling into me, through me, over me, and we were pushed into the air on a column of water that glistened like crystal, and glittered with bits of burning rock, like melting fire. I understood now why he'd asked my permission, because I wasn't a goddess, I was only Merry, and I could not hold all that he offered. I screamed, half in pleasure, as he brought me, and half in fear, because I could feel no end to it.

Over the sound of the ocean boiling underneath us, I heard him say, "Enough!"

I was on the floor on the dais with Barinthus half collapsed on top of me. We blinked up into each other's faces, and I watched my own confusion chase across his eyes. I knew where I was, and I knew what had happened, but the change was —abrupt.

I saw my Doyle and the others who were mine standing around us, facing inward, hands spread, touching one to the other so they formed a circle around us. I could see the power in that circle that they had thrown up so desperately to contain what had happened. The guards who had come with Barinthus were staring in at us, and the police were screaming, "Get her out of here!" Seconds had passed, no more.

Barinthus got to his knees and reached for the hand that did not hold the ring, to help me sit up.

That seemed to be signal enough, because they all lowered their hands in unison. The circle went down, and water surged outward, a miniature flood that soaked the dais, and the chairs nearest us, and all the policemen. Frost's pale grey slacks were soaked to charcoal; Rhys's white silk trench coat, ruined. Only two people stood in the center of that spray of water and stayed dry—Barinthus and me.

Major Walters came up brushing water out of his eyes. "What the fuck was that?"

Doyle started to say something, but Walters waved it away. "Fuck it, get her out of here before something else goes wrong." When they all looked at each other instead of moving, Walters leaned into Doyle and said in a voice that would have done any drill sergeant proud, "Move!"

We moved.

CHAPTER 24

I stumbled on the way out, and it was Galen who lifted me in his arms and crawled into the middle limo on his knees. There'd be a picture the next day of me with blood on my face, looking very frail in Galen's arms. Which meant that some bravely stupid reporter, instead of taking cover when the guns and magic came out, had trailed us to take more pictures. I guess you don't win Pulitzers by playing it safe.

I was actually in the limo, still in Galen's lap with the other guards piling in, when I realized it wasn't my aunt's personal car. It was just an ordinary stretch limo. Which meant it was actually bigger inside than the Black Coach, but not half so scary.

The door shut, someone slapped the roof twice, and we were moving. Doyle walked over everyone's feet and made Galen scoot down so he could sit on the other side of us, against the far door. No one argued with him. Rhys and Kitto were on the half seat across from us. Barinthus was on the swiveling seat that faced us. The seat left a sort of short hallway for others to reach more seats even deeper into the limo. When they said stretch, they meant it.

Sage and Nicca were there in the next open space, on the last two swivel seats so they could sit sort of sideways with their wings. Usna was curled on the far side, with his legs tucked under him, trying to squeeze water from his calico hair. He looked disgusted with the whole arrangement. Maybe he just didn't like being wet.

I realized dimly that Galen's pants were wet and it was soaking into my panties. I pushed off his lap, and I could almost stand normally, one of the pluses of being short. "You're getting me wet."

"Everyone is wet except for you and Barinthus," Usna said from the front.

Galen caught my arm, touching my face and the blood that had already gotten tacky to the touch. "Is any of this yours?"

"No."

Barinthus was looking at him. "I saw blood on Frost's jacket, even after the water. If it doesn't wash off after that much water, then it is fresh."

"I noticed it, too." Doyle leaned around Galen, water glistening on his face in the overhead lights. "How badly are you hurt?"

Frost shook his head. "Not badly."

I touched the dark stain on his left shoulder. "Take off your jacket."

He pushed my hand away. "I am not badly hurt."

"Let me see for myself," I said.

He looked up at me with eyes gone as dark a grey as they could go, like clouds before a storm. He was angry, but I didn't think it was at me; maybe about the situation. "Frost, please."

He pulled off his jacket too quickly, and winced with the movement. He turned those dark storm eyes to Doyle. "It is inexcusable that that human got a shot off."

I knelt on the seat beside Frost to see the bloodstain on his shirt. "I can't see through the shirt."

He grabbed the sleeve near the seam and pulled, ripping the sleeve away.

"If I had shot him before he fired, then the police might never believe that he would have shot at all."

"You deliberately allowed him to fire." Frost said it as if he didn't believe it.

He wasn't the only one who was surprised. It didn't seem like good reasoning to me. My hand must have squeezed his arm, because he hissed. I mumbled, "Sorry," and inspected the wound. The bullet had gone in one side and out the other. It looked clean enough, and the bleeding was already slowed, nearly stopped.

"Bullets will not kill us, Frost, and Meredith was lost behind you. He couldn't have hit her."

"So you let Frost take a bullet," I said. For the first time in all of this, my skin ran cold. It was as if the fear had been waiting for me. Waiting until I got somewhere more secure.

Doyle thought about that for a second, then nodded. "I allowed the policeman to get one shot off, yes."

"The bullet went through me, Doyle, and lodged in the wall. If it had been lower, it would have gone through Merry."

Doyle frowned. "It does not seem like good reasoning, now that you say it like that."